TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 18, 2014) - Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX:LAC) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received gross proceeds of approximately $18.55 million before expenses as a result of the successful closing of its over-subscribed rights offering through the issuance of 77,308,481 common shares at a subscription price of C$0.24 per common share.

Under the rights offering, 65,120,902 common shares were issued under the basic subscription privilege extended to rights holders (representing over 84% of the total shares on offer) with 12,187,579 additional common shares issued pursuant to exercises of the additional subscription privilege.

As previously announced, the Company's largest shareholder, Geologic Resource Partners LLC, through four funds that it manages, agreed to act as a standby purchaser in respect of the rights offering in consideration for a fee equal to 3% of the gross proceeds of the offering. Geologic purchased a total of 22,094,912 common shares under its basic and additional subscription privileges under the offering.

The net proceeds of the rights issue will be used by the Company to repay all its outstanding debt, currently approximately $9.5 million, and for general working capital purposes, including the continuing funding of its flagship Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project in Jujuy province, Argentina.

The total number of issued and outstanding shares of the Company is now 154,616,962.

The Company's Executive Chairman, Tom Hodgson, commented: "We are very appreciative of this strong show of support from our existing shareholders. In particular, I want to thank Geologic Resource Partners, whose willingness to act as a Standby Purchaser ensured the success of the financing. The funds raised will strengthen our balance sheet and provide working capital for the Company as we continue to pursue the best development opportunity for our Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project in Jujuy province, Argentina. In the foreseeable future, our principal development focus will be on implementing the previously announced Co-operation Agreement with POSCO, pursuant to which POSCO will be delivering their PP3 pilot plant to our Cauchari location."

About the Company

Lithium Americas is developing one of the world's largest and lowest cost lithium operations. The Company has defined the world's third largest lithium brine resource, and a completed definitive Feasibility Study identified that Lithium Americas' operating cost per tonne of lithium carbonate is expected to be one of the lowest in the industry.

Cautionary Note and Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward looking statements, which can be identified by the use of statements that include words such as "developing", "expect", "will", "continue", "implementing", or other similar words or phrases. Forward-looking statements express, as at the date of this press release, the Company's plans, estimates, forecasts, projections, expectations, or beliefs as to future events or results. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions, including the key assumptions and parameters on which such estimates are based, involve risks and uncertainties and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. Therefore, actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Factors that could cause results or events to differ materially from current expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to, possible variations in mineral resource and reserve estimates, grade/concentration or recovery rates, lithium or potash prices, operating or capital costs; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; political, community relations, regulatory, environmental and other risks of the mining industry and other risks more fully described in the Company's Short Form Prospectus dated January 31, 2014 available on SEDAR. The Cauchari-Olaroz project has no operating history upon which to base estimates of future cash flow. The capital expenditures and time required to develop any new project is considerable and changes in capital and/or operating costs or construction schedules can affect project economics. It is possible that actual capital and/or operating costs may increase significantly and economic returns may differ materially from the Company's estimates or that prices of lithium and/or potash may decrease significantly or that the Company could fail to enter into a commercialization agreement for the project or obtain further project financing on acceptable terms and conditions or at all, in which case, the project may not proceed either on its original timing or at all. It is not unusual in the mining industry for new mining operations to experience unexpected problems during the start-up phase, resulting in delays and requiring more capital than anticipated. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results to be materially different from those planned, estimated, forecasted, projected or expected. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligations, to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements.